Employee Schedule Data Wizard

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Employee Schedule Data wizard, which is simplifies the process of loading employee schedule data into Dayforce. This wizard enables you to add employee schedules efficiently, including detailed records with pay codes and project information, and incorporates a strong validation engine to prevent data errors. By automating this task, the wizard significantly reduces the time and resources needed for manual uploads, which are usually required during the parallel phase of the project.

The wizard is available to all projects that have completed Getting Started and can be accessed under Load Your Data positioned directly below the Time Away from Work wizard.

What the Employee Schedule Data wizard selection option looks like in the Load Your Data section.

Important: This wizard doesn’t create Departments, Jobs, Org Units, Pay Codes, or Projects. They must be set up and, if necessary, assigned to employees' records in Dayforce ahead of time. The expected value for Org Units is the Site Level.

Important: When loading historical schedules is required, make sure that the appropriate Dayforce client property is configured to permit historical schedule data and/or schedules with multiple breaks and meals. Also, make sure that each break is saved in a separate row, including the employee ID, shift start time, and shift end time.

Note: After a successful installation, users should review the Dayforce background job. In some cases, certain configurable validations in Dayforce might affect the processing of records.

The Employee Schedule What you need to know before you start page with the prerequisite departments, jobs, org units, pay codes, and projects already existing in Dayforce checkbox highlighted.

As part of this new feature, users have the flexibility to either:

Allow Activate to delete all existing schedules for the employees listed in the file. This option deletes only schedules with a start time falling between the specified Start Time and End Time.
Note: This is an existing feature in the import file. When the DeleteLevel tag is set to ALL, it deletes only the schedules for employees that are listed in the file, specifically for start times between the minimum start and maximum end times. Activate doesn’t control this behavior and doesn’t build logic around it.

Opt out. The existing schedules for the employees listed in the file aren’t deleted.

The Would you like ot delete existing employee schedules as part of this schedule load? question with the selection options of Yes and No.

Users can download a data template that includes comprehensive instructions. This template gathers essential and additional field information needed by Dayforce for Employee Time Entry data. They can access the new data template through the wizard or go to the Download All Templates page in the top-right corner of the Profile menu.

The Employee Schedule Data page where you can download and upload the Employee Schedule Data template.

Uploaded data is instantly accessible within an editable grid in Activate. You can make edits directly in the grid or you can download the data template, apply the required changes, and upload the updated data.

When you edit in the grid, Activate shows any pertinent validation warnings or errors instantly. If warnings or errors show, it’s crucial to examine them thoroughly and to address them and either revise the data directly in the grid or upload a corrected template.

Schedule Data Validations

The following checks are implemented for the most common errors based on user feedback. These checks ensure the integrity of data entering Dayforce and reduce the time and effort spent manually validating customer data.

Here are the validation steps:

Schedule Import Verification

Past Schedule Client Property: Verify that the past schedule client property value allows for the schedule import period to be covered.
Correct Records: Make sure that schedules have the correct records applicable for employees based on Dayforce setup.
Overlaps and Gaps: Identify potential overlaps or gaps between the employee's earliest start or latest end times within the provided file and the targeted schedule period in Dayforce.

Duplicate and Overlapping Records

Duplicate Records: Test for duplicate records, either within the file or already existing in Dayforce.
Overlapping Records: Check for overlapping records, either within the file or already existing in Dayforce.

Break Times

Alignment with Work Times: Verify that break times are correctly aligned with the scheduled work times.
Break Type Inclusion: Make sure that a break type is correctly added when break times are included in the file.
Break Time Values: Break Start Time and Break End Time values aren’t applicable if the Break Type field isn’t provided and should be ignored. A warning message prompts the user if they’re provided without a Break Type value.

Work Assignment Integrity

Org Unit, Dept, and Job Fields: If Org Unit, Dept, or Job is provided, all three fields must be entered to ensure Work Assignment integrity.
Validity of Combination: The combination of Org Unit, Dept, or Job is valid for the employee to ensure Work Assignment integrity.

The Employee Schedule Review grid showing the uploaded data.

After a successful installation, go to the Schedules section in Dayforce to access the loaded data.

The Schedules section of Dayforce showing the scheduled information for a week.